week 4; Nov. 11

This week, I noticed a new micro-organism that I haven't seen in my micro-observatory before.  It was a long, caterpillar-looking organism.  According to "Guide to Microlife" the organism is Annelida stylaria.  Its body was covered with bristles and it was squirming around near various types of plant life.  The body of Annelida stylaria was transparent and its organelles were visible; also, you could see parts of the plants that it was eating flow through its body.  Its internal organs varied in color.  Its body was divided into segments, having a long, trunk-like appendage called a proboscis on the end of its head.  *I have attached pictures of some of the previous organisms observed in my micro-aquarium. 

observation 3; week of November 3

The above image is one of a Euchlanis macrura which was taken the first week.

This is a picture of one of several Noleus quadricornis that I observed in my 

micro-aquarium the first week.

When I observed my micro-observatory for the third time, I didn't notice too much change.  I saw a fairly large number of the tiny,transparent Protists from the genus Halteria.  The one new organism that I did notice was a Volvox.  I recognized it from lab earlier that day when we observed several different organisms, including Volvox.  They were circular in shape and generally the same size as the rotifers that I noticed during my first observation.  They were somewhat transparent, allowing me to see a variety of different microscopic organelles.  I noticed a couple large, bright green colored clumps that made up daughter colonies.  Also, I could observe other organelles that I think were the zygote and the egg.  It is covered with numerous small flagella that allow it to move, all though it did not move around very quickly.  These flagella were surrounded by a gelatinous matrix that served the purpose of protecting the countless flagella.

observation 2; week of October 27th

This week i saw a few of the same rotifers from last week, including several Euchlanis macrura, but i saw a new organism. I identified the organism with "Guide to Microlife" as being in the genus Halteria. It is a Protist that is found in ponds, bogs, and open waters, and it is much smaller than the rotifers.  This organism was transparent, therefore most of its organelles were visible under the microscope.  It has a round body with a groove at the top of its body and it bounces around very quickly. It has groups of three long, pointed cirri around the mid section of its body, and a group of fairly long cilia around its mouth.

post #2

When I went and observed my micro aquarium, I noticed many interesting things which I have never seen before. There were several different kinds of amoebas. One type looked like a blue blob that kind of oozed around and changed its shape.  The other one was a circular organism called Actino sphaerium that had a large amount of prickly hair looking appendages protruding from its body in every direction. The majority of the bacteria I saw were various types of rotifers. One of them was Noleus quadricornis and it was somewhat round. It had one tail/flagella and most of its head was covered in cilia. Another one was Euchlanis macrura and it was very similar to the first rotifer, expect that it had two tails/flagella. One resembled Ritifer citrinus and it was much different from the other two. It was long and slender and had two clumps of cilia at each end of its mouth.

first post

In my microaquarium, I used water source number 10. I wanted to make my microaquarium interesting and diverse, so I inserted a number of different water plants and a good bit of soil, which contains bacteria and various organisms. The plants that I inserted were plants A and B, and I am anxious to see how my microaquarium will be changed by next week.